All for Love

The month of February has become synonymous with love, even in India where St Valentine has been the target of many political factions and agitivists trying to oust his day as an alien social and cultural habit in our country. But love will not be quelled so easily. And more and more people, already wounded by Cupid’s arrows, have taken to expressing themselves publicly, especially in this social media era where, everyone and their uncles, put out everything for the world to see and like and comment on and troll… 

But, I’m digressing. Let’s talk about the most exhaustively used four letter word across the world – LOVE.  

Where Do I Begin, To Tell The Story Of How Great A Love Can Be? (Love Story – Andy Williams-1970)

The Hindi film industry is a repository of possibly the maximum number of love stories, both – on, and off screen. While the on screen romances have made a mark across the decades, they are simply too many to enumerate. So we’ll take a look at real love. (Love is Real- John Lennon-1977)

Paeans and odes to love in Hindi films are almost mandatory. The song and dance that our films are known for, largely encompass love stories and their progress. At least till the last decade or so…covering every aspect of love- romantic love, childhood love, enduring love, unrequited love, one-sided love, obsessive love, pure love (always minus chemistry), physical love, violent love, forbidden love, interracial love, star-crossed love, international love, love triangles and rectangles, simple love, complex love, tragic love, psychotic love, killer love…. And often, the same threads as in films, seem to run through the love stories of the film stars.

Image courtesy: Koimoi

Meena Kumari was the poster girl for love’s tragedy, both on screen and in life. She married her love, director Kamaal Amrohi, but it ended up being an emotionally abusive relationship. She was like a caged bird, her wings clipped, her cries unheard. Alcohol may have killed her, but her spirit wilted away long before, yearning for the kind of love she never received. Sure, she was loved by the handsome Dharmendra and the wizard poet Gulzar- they were soulmates in the poetry they wrote from the depths of their being. (Dharmendra also wrote beautiful poetry- still does- for the later love of his life, Hema Malini) But these loves were not meant to walk the journey with the melancholy Meena Kumari.  

The next big love in Dharmendra’s life was decades later, when he married Hema Malini, despite being married and having fathered 4 children with his wife Prakash. 

The Raj Kapoor Nargis love story rocked the industry as well as the foundations of the Kapoor family, held together by the quiet dignity of Krishna Kapoor. Immortalised in the RK logo itself, Nargis was the much married Raj Kapoor’s muse and obsession for a long period of time. They worked together in 18 films over a decade and a half. Nargis apparently even enjoyed the indulgence of a room to herself within the hallowed portals of RK Studios, the same as each of the male Kapoors enjoyed. Post her relationship with RK, (he staunchly refused to marry her), Nargis went into depression. But she met the young Sunil Dutt during the making of Mother India (he played her son in the movie) and a more secure steadfast love blossomed in Nargis’s life again. Sunil Dutt loved and cherished his wife for as long as they remained married, until the end of her life in 1981. 

Raj Kapoor then had a flaming affair with Vyjayanthimala, which caused even more damage to his family, until he ended it in order to win his family back, they had left the family home. 

Dilip Kumar was also said to have been crazy about Vyjayanthimala, after he ended his relationship with Madubala. But he ended up marrying the much younger Saira Banu in the sixties. 

Image courtesy: Hindustan Times

Rajesh Khanna and Anju Mahendru had a live-in relationship way back in the sixties…but Anju, despite being a perfect girlfriend /lover/ partner, felt no compulsion to get married. Rajesh Khannna was an outright chauvinist and the free spirited Anju was often stifled… they split, Rajesh Khanna married the very young Dimple Kapadia, years later. Two daughters later, they parted ways. Dimple found love with Sunny Deol, and Rajesh Khanna moved on to other women along the way, both within the industry and outside of.  

The seventies fodder at the grist mills was the best kept public secret- the rumoured affair between superstar Amitabh Bachchan and his sultry co-star in many films – the dusky south Indian beauty Bhanurekha. Immortalised in Yash Chopra’s Silsila, with Jaya Bachchan, playing the long suffering and helpless wife!  (Rekha then married Vinod Mehra, and later Mukesh Aggarwal, who ended his life after a history of depression and mental health issues.) 

The Salim Khan- Salma- Helen triangle in the eighties also made headlines and still continues to make them, when the family, kids and grandkids all make public appearances.   

The eighties and nineties saw Sanjay Dutt and his many loves. The troubled Sanjay Dutt worked his love route through multiple wives and girlfriends…Madhuri Dixit, Rhea Pillai, and eventually settled down with Maanyata. Third time’s the charm apparently. Sanjay’s path of trauma was peppered with numerous lesser publicised love relationships as well. 

Image courtesy: Bollywoodshaadis

It is heartening to see that love continues to inspire and drive people through and post any number of failed relationships. The human heart never gives up. 

Image courtesy: Bollywoodshaadis

The generation of Penguins – One life, one soulmate, number very few on the list of love stories. Anil and his gorgeous wife Sunita Kapoor, Suneil and Mana Shetty. In the film world, where passion and romance rule, Friday to Friday often, these actors have been married to their sweethearts, stayed constant ( at least they haven’t been caught) and continue to have super strong relationships with their spouses. (Note- neither Sunita Bhambani, nor Mana Qadri are industry actresses and have chosen to stay independent of the film world) Another couple here would be Mahesh Bhatt and Soni Razdan. After his impassioned and heartbreaking relationship with Parveen Babi, it was the quiet strength of the luminous Soni that anchored the lost Mahesh. Today, these aren’t just relationships, they’re relationship goals to emulate.  

Image courtesy: X

Love stories in the Bollywood industry are still happening,  and will always, fast and furiously. Some are time-stamped with an expiry date even as they begin, and some last the long haul. 

Noteworthy- we don’t have any closet love or coming out love amongst actors here in India. There is not a single celebrity couple that is gay. That is not to say they don’t exist. But the social fallout of open admittance and the moral police make ‘happily ever after’ an impossibility here. A fact that is peculiar to India. Around the world, many celebrity same sex couples live in love openly, and dedicate their lives to their partners, without fear of censure of image damage.  

Love makes the world go round and my head spin. Any cynicism experienced in reading this narrative is entirely of one’s own imagination. I am perennially boggled and inspired by the human capacity to seek and find love, and am always happy when two kindred souls come together in love. Love Is An Endless Journey — and definitions of love may change on the surface. But at the core, it’s very simple. The quest to find and match one’s yin or yang takes a lifetime.

For the absolute present, there’s Tinder, Bumble, Aisle, Hinge, Grindr and a whole host of apps that will show you the way to love.

Happy Valentine’s Day!